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Veal Cutlets, Don Fulano
Remove the sinews from a one-and-a-half-pound piece of lean, raw veal, finely chop it with an ounce of raw beef marrow, then place in a bowl and gradually add half gill cream, sharply stirring while adding. Season with half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon cayenne pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Dilute a saltspoon of saffron in saltspoon water, strain and add to the meat with an ounce grated cooked ham, mix until well amalgamated. Roll out the veal on a table to six even cutlet-shaped forms, lightly dip in melted butter, then roll in freshly prepared bread crumbs. Heat two tablespoons of oil or melted butter in a sautoir, place the cutlets in the pan one beside another and gently fry for six minutes on each side, arrange them on a large dish and keep hot. Cut two fresh tomatoes into three even slices each, season with three saltspoons salt, three saltspoon sugar and two saltspoons pepper, lightly roll in flour, fry them in a tablespoon of butter for two minutes on each side. Take them up and arrange them on top of each cutlet, pour a Madeira sauce over them and serve.
A shaped veal forcemeat, breaded and pan-fried, from the era when "cutlet" meant any patty pressed into a chop shape. A few of the measures and one ingredient need translating.
- Gill and saltspoonHalf a gill is 1/4 cup, so the cream is 4 tablespoons for 1 1/2 lb of meat. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon; the "three saltspoons salt" on the tomatoes is 3/4 teaspoon, which is generous for six slices and can be halved.
- Beef marrowOne ounce of raw marrow is the fat that keeps this mixture from drying out. Ask a butcher for marrow bones and scoop the centres, or substitute an equal weight of very cold beef suet or unsalted butter. Do not leave it out.
- SaffronA saltspoon of saffron threads steeped in a saltspoon of water will barely wet them; use a scant 1/4 teaspoon of threads crumbled into a tablespoon of hot water, steep ten minutes, then strain in. It is there for colour and perfume as much as flavour.
- Keep everything coldThis is a panade-less forcemeat held together by fat and protein. Chop the veal cold, add the cream in stages while stirring hard, and chill the mass before shaping or the cutlets will slump and weep fat in the pan.
- SautoirA shallow straight-sided frying pan. Any wide skillet works, but the cutlets should sit in a single layer, as the recipe specifies, or they steam rather than brown.
- Twelve minutes is right hereSix minutes a side over moderate heat is appropriate for a raw chopped-veal patty of this size. Ground veal should reach 160F; check one with a thermometer rather than trusting the clock, and keep the heat medium so the crumbs do not scorch first.
- TomatoesFloured tomato slices fried two minutes a side need firm, barely ripe fruit and a hot pan. Salt them just before flouring, not earlier, or they release water and the flour turns to paste.
- Madeira sauceThe recipe assumes a Madeira sauce made elsewhere, in classical practice a brown sauce or demi-glace finished with Madeira. A quick version: reduce 1/2 cup Madeira by half, add 1 1/2 cups strong brown veal or beef stock, simmer to a light coating consistency and finish with a knob of butter.
- YieldSix cutlets, so four as a main course with a starch, six as part of a longer menu.
"Don Fulano" is the Spanish equivalent of "John Doe" or "so-and-so," which makes this one of the sly jokes buried in grand-hotel menu French: a dish named for Mr. Whoever. The recipe comes from Filippini's The International Cook Book (first published 1906), and its author had cooked at Delmonico's in New York, where the house habit was to name a composed dish for a patron, a singer, an ambassador, or occasionally nobody at all. The technique underneath the name is classical kitchen practice: raw meat chopped fine with marrow and cream into a light forcemeat, pressed into the outline of a chop, crumbed and shallow-fried.